walkingwithfandomcom-20200222-history
Walking with Monsters
Walking with Monsters (also distributed as Before the Dinosaurs: Walking With Monsters) is a three-part British documentary film series about life in the Paleozoic, bringing to life extinct arthropods, fish, amphibians, synapsids, and reptiles. It is narrated by Kenneth Branagh, and by Avery Brooks in the American version. Using state-of-the-art visual effects, this prequel to Walking with Dinosaurs shows for example how a two-ton predatory fish came on land to hunt. The series draws on the knowledge of over 600 scientists and shows nearly 300 million years of Paleozoic history, from the Cambrian Period (530 million years ago) to the Early Triassic Period (248 million years ago). It was written and directed by Tim Haines. As with some of the other BBC specials, it was renamed in North America, where its title was Before the Dinosaurs: Walking With Monsters. It has also aired as a two-hour special on the Canadian and American Discovery Channel. At the 58th Primetime Emmy Awards in 2006 it won the Emmy Award in the category Outstanding Animated Program (For Programming One Hour or More). Episodes Artistic Touches As in the entire Walking with line of films, the animals sometimes interact with the camera; *An Anomalocaris ''knocks the camera while its swimming * A ''Brontoscorpio stings the camera and breaks it. * A Brontoscorpio ''crawls over the camera and a ''Cephalaspis ''swims over the camera * Another ''Brontoscorpio bumps the camera with its claw as it crawls onto land. * A Hynerpeton knocks the camera while he is swimming, so does a Hyneria. * A Hynerpeton breathes on the camera. * A Hyneria splatters water on the camera while diving back into the water. * A Mesothelae crawls on the camera, and so does an Arthropleura. * A Mesothelae kicks dirt on the camera when she crawls over it. * A Dimetrodon ''sniffs the camera * A ''Dimetrodon shakes intestines to avoid eating the faeces inside, and most of the feces and blood splats onto the camera. * A Dimetrodon digs up some dirt, and it lands on the camera. * When A baby'' Dimetrodon gets eaten by A adult ''Dimetrodon and the adult also blacks out the camera * A baby Dimetrodon splatters some dung on the camera when it jumps in a pile of it. * A'' Scutosaurus'' roars at the camera * A Gorgonops also sniffs the camera. * A Gorgonops splatters water on the camera when it jumps in some water. * A Diictodon looks curiously at the camera. * A Proterosuchus also knocks the camera while it is swimming. * A Lystrosaurus jumping into the water splashes water on the camera * A Lystrosaurus bumps and sniffs the camera. Body Part Close-Ups Occasionally, the camera gets a close-up of certain body parts of animals. Here are the list of body part close-ups: * Anomalocaris' eyes * Haikouichthys' backbone * Cephalaspis' sensory gland and brain * Brontoscorpio' lungs * Hynerpeton's lungs and skin * Petrolacosaurus' skin and heart * Edaphosaurus' sail * Dimetrodon's teeth * Diictodon's ear bone * Scutosaurus' stomach * Euparkeria's hip bone Palaeontological inaccuracies Because the series takes an artistic license with regards to its views on evolution, there are a number of inaccuracies especially related to ancestor-descendant relationships. According to the cladistics viewpoint which is favored by modern evolutionary biologists, one can never scientifically claim that a particular fossil form must be directly ancestral to another life form (fossil or not), at most it can be claimed what fossil forms are likely basal to what other life forms.Phylogenetics and Cladistics[http://home.planet.nl/~gkorthof/kortho49.htm Review of In Search of Deep Time by Henry Gee] Not only does the series repeatedly suggest this anyway, many of the claimed 'direct ancestors' are not even considered basal: * Cephalaspis was not the ancestor of gnathostomes (jawed vertebrates) or tetrapods. Gnathostomes (in the form of placoderms and acanthodians) appear in the fossil record before Cephalaspis, probably originated from, or are closely related to, thelodonts, instead. Furthermore, even though Cephalaspis was found only during the early Devonian, it is shown being pursued by the Late Silurian Brontoscorpio. Cephalaspis and jawed vertabrates are sister groups, so the animal we see evolving could have been Cephalaspis ancester. * Diictodon, Gorgonops and Rhinesuchus are only known from South Africa, yet in episode 3 they are portrayed living with Scutosaurus which lived only in Siberia. * In the series, Petrolacosaurus is incorrectly identified as an ancestral synaspid, when in fact, it was an early diapsid and could therefore not have been the ancestor of any synapsids (e.g. Edaphosaurus). The most basal synapsid, Archaeothyris, would have been a more suitable candidate. The ancester of synaspids probably looked like petrolacosarus Criticism Some viewers criticize Walking with Monsters to be an overly dramatic presentation of speculation as fact. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000BNI9EU (see editorial review) In the "Trilogy of Life" documentary, included on the Walking With Monsters DVD, the producers of the "Walking With" trilogy state that their intention was not to write a scientific thesis but to bring prehistoric animals to life. The documentary also states that science is littered with mistakes (some scientists might even say that science only progresses by making mistakes) and that while scientists can make guesses as to how these prehistoric creatures might have looked or behaved while they were alive, there is no guarantee that these guesses are correct and in this case, we have no way of knowing for sure. Gallery Walking with Monsters DVD cover.jpeg|American DVD cover. Haikouicthys01.jpg|A school of Haikouichthys. Pterygotujs.jpg|Brontoscorpio facing off against a Pterygotus. Proterogyrinus vs arthropleura.jpg|Proterogyrinus facing off against Arthropleura. 01.jpg|Meganeura. Edaphosaurus 4.png|A Edaphosaurus. 02.jpg|2 Gorgonops fighting. Imgres1.jpg|Euparkeria hunting Insects. References Category:Walking with Wikia